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Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

not sure the starters could play more. in watching the series, it seemed that Vogel ran out of guys that he trusted to play well and had to overuse the guys he did trust to play well.

They played pretty much their season average, only a few minutes more. For example PG played 29mins during the regular season and played 33mins against the Heat. 33mins is actually lower than what he played against the Magic. Granger played 36mins against the Heat, compared to his season average of 33mins. Hibbert averaged 33mins against the Heat and averaged 29mins during the season.

Do you really think that they could only manage to play a mere 3mins more per game?

On the other side, LeBron played almost 46min. Up from 37mins in the season. Now that's incredible, and isn't a standard I think the Pacers should meet, but LeBron played more minutes during the season and he could still manage to give even more during the playoffs. But it also should point out that it was his highest amount of playing time of a series throughout the playoffs.

Wade also was playing 42mins (also the highest for any series during the playoffs) up from 33mins during the season.

Surely the starters could have played a few minutes more apeice. Not only that, the other big problem was how Frank used his bench. Instead of mixing and matching starters with bench players, he went with whole sale changes.

For as much as I like Rick Carlisle and Frank as coaches, these egg timer substitutions make me want to pull my hair out.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Watching the games, it looked like Frank played guys longer than they really were able to play. Especially the bigs. By the end of the playoffs, it looked like Tyler and Lou were playing only because they had to. Roy and DWest were really ineffective late because they were tired. or at least that's how it looked to me.

Paul didn't play as much because he sucked during the MIA series. I didn't think he played very well at all.

One of the things I watched during the playoffs is how long a rotation Vogel had that he really trusted. vs ORL, it seemed he had 7 guys he liked. But by the end of the series, Leandro had stopped being one of them. It looked like the starters plus DC were the guys he liked at the end. With Paul getting credit for defense, but losing minutes for lack of offense.

Instead of looking at the average minutes played, it might be more useful to look at the median instead. I have no idea what the numbers of mpg were, but i do know average can be misleading unless the data is closely packed.

FWIW, one of the things LeBron doesn't get credit for is the number of minutes he played during the playoffs. Because they were not minutes he could coast, he played hard and was involved on both ends all the time. How someone can work that hard for that long is just amazing.

They played pretty much their season average, only a few minutes more. For example PG played 29mins during the regular season and played 33mins against the Heat. 33mins is actually lower than what he played against the Magic. Granger played 36mins against the Heat, compared to his season average of 33mins. Hibbert averaged 33mins against the Heat and averaged 29mins during the season.

Do you really think that they could only manage to play a mere 3mins more per game?

On the other side, LeBron played almost 46min. Up from 37mins in the season. Now that's incredible, and isn't a standard I think the Pacers should meet, but LeBron played more minutes during the season and he could still manage to give even more during the playoffs. But it also should point out that it was his highest amount of playing time of a series throughout the playoffs.

Wade also was playing 42mins (also the highest for any series during the playoffs) up from 33mins during the season.

Surely the starters could have played a few minutes more apeice. Not only that, the other big problem was how Frank used his bench. Instead of mixing and matching starters with bench players, he went with whole sale changes.

For as much as I like Rick Carlisle and Frank as coaches, these egg timer substitutions make me want to pull my hair out.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

My complaint really isn't with how many minutes the starters played. It goes back to the, I hate to call it logic but.., logic that Vnzla tries using. The Pacers starters outscored the Heat starters. The Heat starters pummeled the Pacers bench. Vnzla's solution to the Heat pummeling the Pacers bench is to upgrade the Pacers starters.

It doesn't make any sense.

I don't think that three more minutes on top of the three extra the Pacers starters gave would have been the difference. But a better bench? That most definitely could have been the difference.

Had Barbosa/Hans just played average, that would have put a lot of pressure on the Heat.

Durant and Westbrook are by far better than any Pacers starter, yet having an upgraded starting roster didn't do much to slow down the Heat either.

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Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Pacers lost because Lebron was much, much better than any player the Pacers have and Wade after game #3 was much better than any player the Pacers have.

We can talk about the bench all day, but that was not the primary reason the Pacers lost. Heat has more talent, or better players, or the two best players and I'll take the team with the two best players everytime and they would win almost every time.

Having said that improving the bench will help and it needed to be done. It is much easier to improve the bench than to find players better than Roy, Danny and West.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

My complaint really isn't with how many minutes the starters played. It goes back to the, I hate to call it logic but.., logic that Vnzla tries using. The Pacers starters outscored the Heat starters. The Heat starters pummeled the Pacers bench. Vnzla's solution to the Heat pummeling the Pacers bench is to upgrade the Pacers starters.

It doesn't make any sense.

I don't think that three more minutes on top of the three extra the Pacers starters gave would have been the difference. But a better bench? That most definitely could have been the difference.

Had Barbosa/Hans just played average, that would have put a lot of pressure on the Heat.

Durant and Westbrook are by far better than any Pacers starter, yet having an upgraded starting roster didn't do much to slow down the Heat either.

OKC also had the 6th man of the year in Hardin. How did that work out?

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

We are talking about losing to a star-studded championship team. I'm not sure there is anything we could do to win the series. But 9 minutes per game of James and Wade vs. our second unit had a lot to do with their winning the last three games with relative ease.

Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself, rushing over me
Life itself, the wind in black elms,
Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

We are talking about losing to a star-studded championship team. I'm not sure there is anything we could do to win the series. But 9 minutes per game of James and Wade vs. our second unit had a lot to do with their winning the last three games with relative ease.

There might not have been anything we could have done, but we could have done better. I'm sure part of this was lack of training camp and practice time, but this year if we face them we should have never had a minute where Danny or Paul isn't on the court to guard Lebron. Also, hopefully Mahinmi can at least fill some of the massive gap left when Hibbert is resting. Mahinmi could be our most important change.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Our starters outscore their starters, while their staters outscore our bench, and the solution is that we need better starters.

What a simple solution.

One would think that you'd argue that the starters needed to play more, not be replaced.

And who are you going to play more minutes? Roy? He can't play more than 30min a game, West? the guy who couldn't defend anybody and got shut down by Battie? yes Battie, Danny? the guy who Lebron James broke all kind of records against? Hill was a no show and Paul George was getting killed on every pick and roll.

Replace SA's bench with the Pacers bench and the outcome is the same, not even SA's starters that are better than the Pacers starters were able to pull it off.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

My complaint really isn't with how many minutes the starters played. It goes back to the, I hate to call it logic but.., logic that Vnzla tries using. The Pacers starters outscored the Heat starters. The Heat starters pummeled the Pacers bench. Vnzla's solution to the Heat pummeling the Pacers bench is to upgrade the Pacers starters.

It doesn't make any sense.

I don't think that three more minutes on top of the three extra the Pacers starters gave would have been the difference. But a better bench? That most definitely could have been the difference.

Had Barbosa/Hans just played average, that would have put a lot of pressure on the Heat.

Durant and Westbrook are by far better than any Pacers starter, yet having an upgraded starting roster didn't do much to slow down the Heat either.

OKC lost because Durant and Harden didn't show up and because Brooks was forcing Perkins it doesn't have anything to do with Collison, Aldrich or any of their bench players, the starters lost that series for them(I consider Harden an starter).

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

There might not have been anything we could have done, but we could have done better.

Agreed. I'm still concerned about having a really young inexperienced coach for a really young, not very experienced team. I think he got caught up in thinking we had depth when it was -- as somebody else nicely put it -- balance. We really were only six players deep last season. Seven when Barbosa's shot was falling. Our 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th men were equally uninspiring, so that's not depth. Our backup front court was universally awful (especially after Hill moved to the starting lineup). It is any wonder that Collison just put his head down and drove to the basket? That was the second unit's only offense at all. And for those guys, if there shot isn't falling first the defense isn't very good either.

Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself, rushing over me
Life itself, the wind in black elms,
Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Agreed. I'm still concerned about having a really young inexperienced coach for a really young, not very experienced team. I think he got caught up in thinking we had depth when it was -- as somebody else nicely put it -- balance. We really were only six players deep last season. Seven when Barbosa's shot was falling. Our 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th men were equally uninspiring, so that's not depth. Our backup front court was universally awful (especially after Hill moved to the starting lineup). It is any wonder that Collison just put his head down and drove to the basket? That was the second unit's only offense at all. And for those guys, if there shot isn't falling first the defense isn't very good either.

It's the back up bigs that killed us though. DWest played extra minutes, and Hibbert played more than usual, but the different with Hibbert resting was just sooooooooo big.

BTW I wish our PGs had put their head downs and attacked MORE when Norris Cole was in. They could have destroyed him on every play he was in the game but they let him stay on the court. The stretch of a few plays when Collison totally went off was against Cole. Once they took him out though he got slowed down.

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Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

We agree, which is why I'm fine with the offseason strategy of keeping the starters together -- Hibbert's playoff experience and another year of West's veteran presence will help -- and improving the 6/7/8 men. Is Green really better than Collison? Nah. Is Green/Augustin/ Mahinininiini (whatever, give me six months before I'll ever get that one right...) better than Collison, ____, and _____. Oh yeah.

Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself, rushing over me
Life itself, the wind in black elms,
Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

I'm not sure that it's that important. They won, so what's important is what we have to do differently to counteract it.

Also, part of that is Bosh was out. Lebron wouldn't have played as many PF minutes with Bosh available.

It should be pretty clear we aren't going to beat the Heat by trying to do the same thing they did - have two superstars who play 40* minutes each.

I think we need to have bench players who can at least contain the damage while our own starters rest. Our starters can't match up to Miami's starters, really, but our RESTED starters have a pretty good shot against EXHAUSTED Miami starters.

BillS

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

It should be pretty clear we aren't going to beat the Heat by trying to do the same thing they did - have two superstars who play 40* minutes each.

I think we need to have bench players who can at least contain the damage while our own starters rest. Our starters can't match up to Miami's starters, really, but our RESTED starters have a pretty good shot against EXHAUSTED Miami starters.

Our starters got out to a lead at the start of every game. They did fine against Miami's starters.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Our starters got out to a lead at the start of every game. They did fine against Miami's starters.

But I don't think they are up to that if we just use Miami's strategy and play them 40 minutes each. That's why our bench being weak hurt us. We need to rest our starters in order for them to be able to maintain that advantage.

Plus, as has been mentioned, Miami did not have Bosh, so we had a mismatch when we used it properly.

BillS

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Our starters got out to a lead at the start of every game. They did fine against Miami's starters.

"Our starters did fine against Miami starters", this has to be one of PD's biggest myths, the more people repeat it the more it becomes reality, it's almost as good as the "DC is becoming a great point guard" myth.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

How is it a myth? Watch the games. Look at the stats. The starters got us leads, more often than not. The bench would fritter it away, more often than not. The weak point of every loss was late 1st / early 2nd and late 3rd/ early 4th where the bench could not keep up.

Hopefully Frank learned that with longer TV timeouts, longer halftime, never any playoff back-to-backs, it is folly to play a 10 man rotation because those 9th and 10th men will kill you.

One advantage to re-making our bench is positional versatility of Green (SG/SF) and Mahinmi (PF/C). If they play well maybe we can just go 8 deep, with Augustin . With an injury, Lance could be versatile too (PG/SG).

The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!)

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Harden played almost 33mins a game. For all intents-and-purposes, he is a starter. But it still proves my point. Vnzla is saying you've got to have heavy star power in order to beat the Heat.

Well OKC lost in 5 games with three stars bigger than any star the Pacers have, who took the Heat to 6 games. So obviously star power isn't the magic solution either.

How many championships have been won by teams without an star? I'm pretty sure you know the number(0), and yes OKC has two superstars and one star but as you might know one of the superstars and the star decided not to show up, not only that but their coach was horrible.

By the way OKC got to the finals because of their star power not because their bench took them there, just because they lost the finals doesn't mean that they have to trade one of their stars so they can have a deep bench.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

But I don't think they are up to that if we just use Miami's strategy and play them 40 minutes each. That's why our bench being weak hurt us. We need to rest our starters in order for them to be able to maintain that advantage.

Plus, as has been mentioned, Miami did not have Bosh, so we had a mismatch when we used it properly.

We did win the game that we rode the starters in the second half. Danny and West both played 40ish minutes in our wins. Paul George will probably be able to play more minutes in the future.

We need to be able to not play the whole bench together though. I hope that's something they work on with full training camp/summer league/practice time. A real backup center should help a bunch though.

Re: Have you seen the plus-minus from the Miami series?

Uh Detroit. Rip, Chauncey, Sheed, Big Ben, Tayshaun all made their names because they won rings. None of them are superstars. They all were All-Star bench players who played on the same team, you know, kinda like Roy and Danny. When you're on a top team in the East, you'll get players selected to the All-Star game, and that's how it happened with Detroit.